The galaxy cluster Abell 2052 is found some 480 million light years from Earth. At the center of Abell 2052 is a giant elliptical galaxy, and within that is a supermassive black hole. X-ray data from Chandra show the hot gas that fills the space within the cluster. Pulling away, we see a huge spiral structure around this central elliptical galaxy. This spiral, which is over one million light years across, was created when a smaller spiral smashed into Abell 2052. This caused the hot gas in the cluster to slosh back and forth, similar to how wine moves when a glass is tugged from side to side. This sloshing turns out to be very important. First, it helps redistribute the hot gas, which, in turn, affects the number of new stars being formed in the central galaxy. The sloshing also spreads elements like oxygen and iron throughout the cluster, enriching future generations of stars and planets with the building blocks necessary for life as we know it.
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One of the most complicated and dramatic collisions ever seen between galaxy clusters is captured in this new composite image. This collision site, known officially as Abell 2744, has been dubbed "Pandora's Cluster" because of the wide variety of the different structures found here. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory show gas with temperatures of millions of degrees. A map based on data from Hubble and two ground-based optical telescopes reveals the location of matter, most of which is the mysterious material known as dark matter. Working together, these telescopes show that Pandora's cluster is actually the result of the collision of at least four separate galaxy clusters, each coming from a different direction. Scientists think this cosmic smash-up has taken place over a span of some 350 million years.
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Just in time for Valentine's Day comes a new image of a ring -- not of jewels -- but of black holes. This image shows Arp 147, a pair of interacting galaxies some 430 million light years from Earth, as seen by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. The ring-shaped object on the right is a remnant of a spiral galaxy that collided with the elliptical galaxy to the left millions of years ago. The collision triggered a wave of star formation. Many of these new young stars raced through their evolution in a few million years or less and ended up as supernova explosions or black holes. X-rays from Chandra now reveal a ring of these black holes in the outer arms of the spiral structure. Researchers estimate that the nine sources around the ring are likely 10 to 20 times more massive than the Sun a rather impressive weight for any Valentines gift.
[Runtime: 0.59](X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/S.Rappaport et al, Optical: NASA/STScI)

Located in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way a mere 7,500 light years from Earth, the Carina Nebula is one of the best places to study how massive stars live and die. Chandra's extraordinarily sharp X-ray vision has detected over 14,000 stars in this region, revealed a diffuse X-ray glow, and provided strong evidence that supernovas have already occurred in this massive complex of young stars. This includes a scarcity of giant stars in the region known as Trumpler 15. This is evidence that many stars here have already exploded and disappeared. The most famous star in the Carina Nebula is Eta Carinae, which many astronomers believe will itself soon explode as a supernova.
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This animation shows an artist's impression of a distant galaxy and its hidden black hole found in an epoch when the Universe was less than one billion years old. The galaxy contains regions of active star formation (blue) and large amounts of gas and dust (red). The view zooms into the galaxy, and a glowing disk of hot gas falling onto massive central object is seen. At the center of the disk is a supermassive black hole. Many types of radiation emitted from the disk are blocked by the veil of dust and gas, but very energetic X-rays are able to escape. Scientists found many of these black holes in the early Universe using the new Chandra Deep Field South.
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Astronomers have recently completed a large survey of the sky using some of the powerful telescopes both on the ground and in space. This survey, known as the Cosmic Evolution Survey, or COSMOS, has revealed many results. The latest comes from a study of galaxies, both in pairs and others on their own. Researchers wanted to test whether or not close encounters between two galaxies trigger activity in the supermassive black holes at their centers. The two galaxies seen here are just samples from the thousands of galaxies they studied. The Chandra data were key because the X-rays can pinpoint just how active these black holes are. It turns out that the black holes within these galaxies are, in fact, growing more rapidly if they are in the early stages of an encounter with another galaxy. Maybe galaxies and their black holes are social after all.
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In recent years, astronomers have found hundreds of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. New Chandra observations of one of these planets reveal that it is in a fairly dire situation. The Chandra data provide evidence that the star in this system, known as CoRoT-2a, is blasting a planet that is in an extremely close orbit around it with very powerful X-rays. These X-rays are a hundred thousand times more intense than those that the Earth receives from the Sun, and are causing some serious damage. Astronomers estimate that this high-energy radiation is evaporating about 5 million tons of matter every second from the planet. Future observations with Chandra and other telescopes should reveal more details about what's going on in this system and perhaps others like it. In the meantime, let's be happy that the Earth isn't anything like this fried planet.
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Over three decades ago, Stephen Hawking placed, and eventually lost, a bet against the existence of a black hole in Cygnus X-1. Today, astronomers are confident the Cygnus X-1 system contains a black hole. In fact, a team of scientists has combined data from radio, optical, and X-ray telescopes including Chandra to determine the black hole's spin, mass, and distance more precisely than ever before. With these key pieces of information, the history of the black hole has been reconstructed. This new information gives astronomers strong clues about how the black hole was born, how much it weighed, and how fast it was spinning. This is important because scientists still would like to know much more about the birth of black holes.
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G299.2-2.9 is an intriguing supernova remnant found about 16,000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy. Here we see the remnant in X-rays from Chandra overlaid on infrared data from the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey. Astronomers have gathered evidence that shows this remnant is the aftermath of what is called a Type Ia supernova. Type Ias happen when a white dwarf grows too massive and violently explodes. Astronomers want to understand the exact details of how Type Ias explode because they use them to measure the accelerated expansion of the universe and study dark energy. Because it is older than most Type Ias found so far, G299.2-2.9 provides astronomers with an excellent opportunity to study how these important objects evolve over time.
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Like looking for Easter eggs in a lawn of long grass, the hunt for the Milky Way's most massive stars takes persistence and sharp eyes and powerful telescopes that can see different types of light. This image shows infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope near the plane of the Milky Way galaxy. These boxes contain a darkened view of the Spitzer data that highlights a bright Chandra X-ray source. Analysis of the X-ray and infrared data, as well as optical and radio observations, reveals that these bright sources are extremely massive stars. In fact, these stars are thought to be at least 25 times as massive as our Sun. It is difficult to find these stars with optical telescopes because dust and gas in the plane of the Milky Way blocks our view. We can see them in X-rays because high-speed winds from their surfaces collide with material, creating shock waves that generate temperatures up to 100 million degrees.
[Runtime: 1.07](X-ray: NASA/U. of Sydney/G.Anderson et al; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech)